Arizona must benefit from south-of-border changes

It may long be a historical paradox that Arizona was passing the nation's toughest immigration law at a time when illegal immigration was significantly declining.

Some will argue Arizona's get-tough approach to undocumented migrants triggered this large outflow and shrinking inflow of illegal immigrants. But much larger forces were at play.

We are on the cusp of a change that the hard-line approach doesn't acknowledge. Unless Arizona begins to recognize the nature of the change and act on an emerging new reality, our state will miss opportunities.

What's changing?

Mexico.

Mexicans are finding increasing economic opportunities at home. Mexican families are smaller, with birthrates dropping to two children per woman in 2011, down from 6.8 in 1970.

More children have access to education. There also is a growing awareness that crossing the border illegally has become prohibitively dangerous and expensive as a result of increased border enforcement.

Couple that with the reduced demand for labor in the United States as a result of the Great Recession and the painfully slow recovery, and you have illegal immigration decreasing.

Douglas S. Massey, co-director of the Mexican Migration Project at Princeton University, has done long-term studies of migration patterns. He wrote in a blog for CNN that "the rate of new undocumented migration from Mexico dropped to zero in 2008 for the first time in 50 years."

According Massey, new undocumented immigrants are not headed northward and former undocumented migrants are coming back in reduced numbers.

What's not happening, though, is what the restrictionists insisted would happen if only we passed laws that made life tougher for undocumented people living here.

This "does not reflect a significant move toward 'self-deportation' among undocumented residents present in the United States," Massey wrote. "Long-term undocumented residents are less likely than ever to leave."

This determination to stay suggests a real commitment to this country by these undocumented residents - and a high level of assimilation. It is a powerful argument for a legalization process that would allow these individuals - about 3 million of whom were brought to the country as minors - to be offered a way to earn legal status.

Massey cites increased use of guest-worker programs as another reason for declining rates of illegal immigration. Yet agriculture and other industries heavily reliant on migrant labor still face labor shortages.

The changes in Mexico - and the growth of a Mexican middle class that loves to shop in the United States - shows the folly of continuing to act as though the realities along the border remain what they were in the 1990s.

Arizona and the nation need to take another look.

The situation is not what it was, and Arizona needs to develop the vision to build on a changing reality and the growing opportunities south of the border.